D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Micah Sweet]

weapon can easily break in combat?

now all martials look like this;

View attachment 418106

That may seem silly, but in general I really see zero issue with martials carrying multiple weapons.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's a plot point in BG1 due to inferior materials. But magic (and a couple of plot) weapons don't break, so martials are not too disadvantaged against casters.

If you are going to have weapons breaking, it's pretty much essential that you also have random spell failure.

Yes! Bring on spell failure! Already have both of these concepts in my houserule document.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't like the idea of equipment breakage, but thinking about it, stuff does break down, especially weapons and armor. D&D adventurers, in particular, are hard on their gear, often taking it into battle with unnatural creatures with great strength and natural defenses.

So this begs the question, if say, breaking on a natural 1 is unviable, when should gear break down? I recently watched a video on YouTube where a guy tested out the scene from Army of Darkness where Ash breaks a sword with a shotgun blast. It didn't snap off as it does in the movie, but the blade did bend and looked pretty sorry afterwards.

So thinking about that, and thinking about someone using Defensive Duelist to parry a Hill Giant's club, there certainly are times when gear should at least be temporarily impaired or damaged. Yet unless a creature has a specific special ability to break things, a DM ruling gear being damaged out of the blue might risk being lynched by their players! So a reasonable rule for extreme circumstances that a DM could point to might not be out of the pale.

I guess it comes down to whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze. The Complete Fighter's Handbook in 2e had a system where armor broke down after being attacked X amount of times, but when I tried using the rules, armor tended to be durable enough that it was never a problem in the field, and just taxed some gold out of the players they weren't using anyways (not to mention the same book had rules for masterwork armor, some of which was even more durable!), so I stopped bothering, much in the same way I stopped closely watching player rations- when I finally engineered a situation where they might run low, the Cleric just devoted a spell slot to feeding the group until they stuffed a Bag of Holding full of imperishable rations, rendering the whole thing moot.

In Level Up extradimensional spaces interact poorly with perishable items.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I find that rules for ordinary weapons regularly breaking in use produce a stupid-silly game, not a fun one. I also have no problem at all with characters who specialize with a signature, iconic weapon. So in my games this is a bad solution looking to solve a non-problem.

If there's a place for weapons-regularly-breaking-in-combat rules, it's for improvised weapons and weapons known to be especially cheap and shoddy. Not for regular weapons and certainly not for masterwork or magic weapons.

What counts as "regularly breaking" for you?

 

[TiQuinn]

A fighter would likely look something like the following if the rule was used
View attachment 418120

Yes, and in earlier D&D games, you had back up gear for situations like this! Carrying two magic weapons was a total thing!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why must martials characters suffer beatings with the "realism" stick?

I think every creature in the setting should suffer those beatings, martial and caster, PC and NPC. Like I said above, bring on spell failure!

 

[Micah Sweet]

People citing items breaking in older editions arent considering that it comes about in specific circumstances, and each item gets a saving throw with magic items gaining bonuses to such saving throws based on their power.

It is a risk when faced with specific challenges, not a bad day with your swing. In 1e at least, I cant speak to 2e

I'm down with item saving throws and the like and circumstances under which they must be made. Who says otherwise? IMO you just have to use the logic of the setting to determine when these things can happen.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I

Ah verisimilitude, when you get tired beating martials with realism use verisimilitude as the excuse. Its funny how casters always avoid these beatings.

Not in my game. Are you having this problem at your table?

 

[AlViking]

Yes, and in earlier D&D games, you had back up gear for situations like this! Carrying two magic weapons was a total thing!

I don't remember ever using that rule, but then the rest of my arguments remain. Where are the penalties for the characters that don't rely on weapons?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sorry you don't like a counter opinion. Let's be honest, whenever these restrictive mechanics are proposed they are always aimed at martials. When do see spell failure, or casting rolls or divine refusal aimed at casters?

Like I said, I fully support the kinds of rules you're talking about for casters, and have them in my houserule doc for the same reason I have rules for item breakage.